Wikipedia's political bias problem

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CrowsNest
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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by CrowsNest » Thu May 31, 2018 12:16 am

:lol: :lol: :lol:
I generally believe that editors should mostly stay away from situations or topics that are very emotional for them, and I can get quite emotional about Donald Trump. It would be a lot of work for me personally to write in a neutral way about him, because he upsets me so much.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:18, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Detaching your emotions from your end product is the job. That and knowledge of the topic in the first place. That's why people get paid to do it properly - it is meant to be hard work.

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by CrowsNest » Tue Jun 12, 2018 8:19 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =845570454

(second Calton report)

Once again, the high ranking Wikipedians have used Arbitration Enforcement to ensure that when the article affected is a biography of an extremist and the reporting editor is described as an apologist/whitewasher by opponents (but strangely not yet blocked as one), the rules are conveniently bent and the offender is assumed to have merely made a mistake.

As bad as this is from an ethical standpoint, and as obvious as it is to see how bending the rules here can easily lead to it happening for subjects/editors who the higher ups merely disagree with on more mainstream political views, the real tragedy is, it isn't all that hard for these people to act perfectly ethically here.

Calton broke 1RR, he had no legitimate reason to do so, literally none, and he was rude/aggressive in the process. All you have to do is block him for 24 hours, or whatever length is appropriate if he has priors. Doing that doesn't bind your hands should you want to progress any action against the person he was reverting, for whatever reason. As long as you are as even handed in that matter as you should have been with Calton, then I don't see why anyone should interpret that as you merely punishing someone for successfully reporting Calton.

This is not complicated.

It is precisely because it is not complicated, that for consciously choosing to deviate from neutral application of what they consider to be their law, Wikipedia deserves its ever growing reputation as a key player in the information wars.

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by CrowsNest » Wed Jun 13, 2018 10:23 am

General agreement that the block was controversial in that the BLP issues were unclear enough to be sanctionable, and has been reversed. Black Kite (talk) 22:12, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
BLP: "Remove immediately any contentious material about a living person that:.......is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see No original research);"

No original research: "Articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not clearly stated by the sources themselves."

There was no lack of clarity here. They all understand the policy basis of the reverts, they are just choosing to ignore the politicised nature of the objections. The very same Wikipediots and their Administrative protectors, would quite willingly choose to interpret these words of policy the way the reporter did, if the beneficiary is a public figure whose opinions they like.

You could make some very biased changes to the biography of Hilary Clinton, for example, using nothing but the highest quality of sources, if this really were how BLP is meant to be applied. If it were commonplace, as one Wikiepdiot even claimed. If they deny it, let them face the inevitable consequences for such dishonesty.

The real proof this is institutional bias at work, is the fact it would not take much effort to remove the source of ambiguity in the policy. If what Calton did here is correct, if that really is a legitimate interpretation of this policy, so obvious they choose to do nothing about the aggressive and dismissive way he has reacted (all blockworthy given his history, yet funnily enough overlooked), then that is easily clarified on the policy page, so as to avoid the possibility that following this interpretation can lead to an AE report.

So why not do so? Because the flexibility of allows is exactly how they manage to achieve biased outcomes at AE. It gives them sufficient room to make the necessary fudges, depending on who is reporting who.

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by CrowsNest » Sat Jun 16, 2018 12:30 am

There is a transparent effort underway to co-opt WikiProject Conservatism and form an association of editors who hold the same POV. As far as I can tell, it involves email, gratuitous barnstars, and certain editors showing up at various content and conduct disputes in which they have otherwise been uninvolved. Anyone paying any attention knows that there are approximately four bad actors in this scheme. I'm not sure what can be done about it.- MrX 17:25, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Despite this having been said on the Administrator's noticebaord, this user was not blocked or even warned for such a blatant attempt to stir the pot (the policy based answer to his question is to name names and provide evidence, or delete that shit). The people being smeared were Conservatives, so, y'know.

He went on to say......
Best practice is to announce an RfC to all wikiprojects listed on an article talk page. Avoiding the appearance of vote stacking isn't that difficult folks.- MrX 20:24, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
....but as before, you will note this is long on accusation, short on details.

The only scheme here seems to have been the report itself, which was designed to give this partisan asshole and others an opportunity to post these vague claims just to plant the idea out there that some thing fishy is going on, and the Administrators need to put those dodgy Conservatives on watch. Unless we are to assume User:Objective3000 and Snooganssnoogans had never seen RFC notices posted to Wikproject talk pages or ever read WP:CANVASS before. Which seems extremely unlikely.

O3000 twice said he was reluctant to name names because he hadn't gone there looking for sanctions. Naturally, the names might have come later, had these people got what they wanted. Unusually, they did not. Even so, none were warned or blocked. I guess the Wikipedians just don't find this sort of thing to be a major conduct violation.

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by CrowsNest » Tue Jun 26, 2018 8:59 pm

On dear......
For someone who hates the west and capitalism as much as he does, it's funny that they are so active in a western wesbite.

Tarage (talk) 21:42, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
Well, that's everybody told isn't it. Wikipedia is a western website, and western websites are for people who love capitalism.

This comment was made on the Administrator's Noticeboard, and not one Wikipedian, NOT ONE, piped up to say dude, wtf?

Their bias is so ingrained, they literally don't even see it when it is right in front of their face.

The user in question is now blocked, not because they hate capitalism or the west, but for being a nob (officially: disruptive). Well, at least we hope that is the reason, the lack of any visible pushback against this moronic comment opens the door to the possibility that all those who voted to ban the user agree with the proposition that loving capitalism and the west is a prerequisite to being allowed to edit Wikipedia, and if you don't, that adds to the body of evidence that you might be "disruptive".

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by CrowsNest » Mon Jul 02, 2018 7:55 pm

In a rather unconventional way, Atsme has just been banned from American Politics for being a disruptive influence. Interestingly, she has seven Featured Articles to her name, including two about American politics, so it would appear it is not the subject itself which causes these issues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... (June_2018)

None of it makes any sense if taken at face value. Atsme is disruptive, sure, but what is immediately obvious to anyone remotely familiar with Wikipedia, is that her behaviour is not remotely outside of what is considered everyday normal for the fucked up environment they have tolerated for so long, especially in American politics.

They'll deny it most vehemently, but the most logical explanation for why this particular user was singled out, is their politics, and that of the prosecutor Mr X. As well as politics, indeed perhaps because of it, Bishonen acted unilaterally and with great haste, talking so much bollocks about how she now loves DS and wants admins to act unilaterally to enforce ArbCom's edicts, so as to avoid a third American Politics Arbitration case, where it seems increasingly likely the massive bias in how AE and "Admin discretion" is being manipulated to eliminate editors who hold the wrong views, would be presented as evidence.

Other than Sandstein, is there a single Administrator out there who would come out of such a review with nobody, not judges or jury, being to discern their personal politics from their actual Administrative actions? Bishonen's bias would be obvious, and ArbCom is just about the only body that can cut her legs away from her. So she happily, quite brazenly, pulls stunts like this. Several Arbitrators even went along with it. Presumably because they can see just how much work adjudicating AmPol 3 would involve.

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by sashi » Mon Jul 02, 2018 9:40 pm

I keep hearing echos of the strong sentiment that heads will be rolling soon. Can we call for random folks' heads up here in the nose-bleed seats? Or is this just an announcement type announcement?

I do suggest that if there is to be an AmPol3 someone with Carbom should preliminill-arily ordain or enjoin that Neutrality's username be herewith and heretofore scrambled into Arty e-Lutin.

I don't even want to talk about Atsme's situation, because I haven't really done all the research necessary to... it is a bit of a confusing story I only read about yesterday. I do hope that she gives serious consideration to joining a better reading community somewhere, rather than wearing the wiki-gag every day.

We should play counter-satyr to kudpung's admin poll with a poll of our own from the bagnes...

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by sashi » Tue Jul 03, 2018 1:58 pm

Examiner Drmies living life wrote:If it hadn't been for that I might not have weighed in there....

source


note in particular the links to MrX & Drmies "speaking in tongues" (Cf. §) while weighing their way into Atsme's statement at the source above (the link in CN's post doesn't/didn't work because of the closing parenthesis)

Speaking of weighing in all godfatherly-like, it's... uncle trypto & ... § (oh no, it's Mongo!)


note: the (Cf. §) mentioned above is an open call for contributions. The most recent piece on NYB is fun, too...

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by hyatt » Tue Jul 24, 2018 11:49 pm

Several WMF board members are deeply tied into the Democratic Party messaging machine. Count the conflicts of interest...

The page has had some updates since I last posted it.

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Re: Wikipedia's political bias problem

Post by ericbarbour » Wed Jul 25, 2018 8:18 pm


Very, very old story. Lots of American Democratic Party supporters showed up early in WP history. Some of them even purged the others...ask Andy Sylvia about that.

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